The Sioux certainly have no love for Daschle. Daschle is a close friend and political ally of South Dakota governor William Janklow, known for his rabidly anti-Indian views. How anti-Indian is Janklow? In 1974 he told reporters: "The only way to deal with the Indian problem in America, is to put a gun to the AIM [American Indian Movement] leaders' heads and pull the trigger." In 1983, Janklow sued writer Peter Matthiessen for $23 million in an attempt to stop publication of In the Spirit of Crazy Horse - Matthiessen's great book on the FBI's assault on the Pine Ridge reservation and the trial of Leonard Peltier. Janklow's suit was eventually thrown out of court.
Daschle also helped to organize the Open Hills Association, a group of ranchers, mining companies and timber groups that came together to oppose the return of the Black Hills to the Sioux. A recent Sioux newsletter described the Open Hills Association as espousing "overtly racist views."
In 1999, Daschle engineered the passage of the deceptively titled Wildlife Mitigation Act. The bill authorized the transfer of 90,000 acres of land along the Missouri River then controlled by the US Army Corps of Engineers to the state of South Dakota. The land is inside both the 1851 and 1868 Ft. Laramie Treaty boundaries and rightfully belongs to the Sioux tribe. A contingent of Sioux elders and members of the Lakota Student Alliance occupied LaFramboise Island, a sandbar in the Missouri River near the state capitol, for over a year as a protest against the transfer. Daschle didn't budge.
Daschle also helped to organize the Open Hills Association, a group of ranchers, mining companies and timber groups that came together to oppose the return of the Black Hills to the Sioux. A recent Sioux newsletter described the Open Hills Association as espousing "overtly racist views."
In 1999, Daschle engineered the passage of the deceptively titled Wildlife Mitigation Act. The bill authorized the transfer of 90,000 acres of land along the Missouri River then controlled by the US Army Corps of Engineers to the state of South Dakota. The land is inside both the 1851 and 1868 Ft. Laramie Treaty boundaries and rightfully belongs to the Sioux tribe. A contingent of Sioux elders and members of the Lakota Student Alliance occupied LaFramboise Island, a sandbar in the Missouri River near the state capitol, for over a year as a protest against the transfer. Daschle didn't budge.